Clay Higgins recorded a video during a tour of Auschwitz, saying it was proof that the U.S. needs strong military

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July 5, 2017 2:21PM (UTC)

Clay Higgins, R-La., had an enlightening experience last week visiting Auschwitz, one of the largest and most brutal concentration camps built by Nazi Germany, and using that as a reason to push his military agenda.

"A great sense of dread comes over you in this place," Higgins said in the five-minute video. "Man's inhumanity to man can be quite shocking."

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"This is why homeland security must be squared away, why our military must be invincible," Higgins added, politicizing a site commemorated for the dead . . The world's a smaller place now than it was in World War II. The United States is more accessible to terror like this, horror like this. It's hard to walk away from the gas chambers and ovens without a very sober feeling of commitment — unwavering commitment — to make damn sure that the United States of America is protected from the evils of the world."

The video drew a response from the Auschwitz‑Birkenau Memorial and State Museum, the organization that maintains the camp. In a tweet, the museum wrote that the former gas chambers should be met with "mournful silence."

This was not the first time that new media has gotten Higgins into trouble. In early June, after the terrorist attacks in London, Higgins took to Facebook to condemn "Islamic horror" and called for the deaths of "radical Islamic" suspects.

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Taylor Link

Taylor Link is an assistant editor at Salon. You can find him on Twitter at @taylorlink_